South Australia (song) - As A Popular Song

As A Popular Song

In the 1890s, "South Australia" became popular as a camp song. And by the second decade of the 20th century, it had been adopted by several college glee clubs.

English folk revival singer A.L. Lloyd recorded the song, without citing a source, on the early 1960s album Blow Boys Blow. Based on his melody and the phrase "hear me sing," which are rather unique to the version published by Doerflinger, it is likely that Lloyd was at least partially influenced by that collection, which had just come out in 1951 and which he clearly made use of for other shanties he performed. The Clancy Brothers recorded the song in 1962, in a version that was clearly derivative of A.L. Lloyd's. Perhaps due to mishearing, they rendered Lloyd's phrase "lollop around Cape Horn" as the fairly nonsensical "wallop around Cape Horn." It is The Clancy Brothers' version that has mainly stuck as the version sung by folk music and shanty revival performers.